AP News, June 15th, 2007
Tens of thousands of elementary school-age girls work in Guinea for no pay as household servants in conditions akin to slavery, according to a report released Friday by Human Rights Watch.
The girls, some as young as 5 years old, cook, clean, fetch water and care for the host family's own children. They are often promised money but the majority are never paid. The few that are paid receive on average less than $5 per month, the New York-based group said.
Known in Francophone West Africa as the "petites bonnes," or little maids, the girls often work 18-hour days and are prevented from attending school.
Although some host families give the children a bed, many sleep on the floor. They are typically shunned by the rest of the family and forbidden from taking their meals with them. They eat scraps, like the burnt rice at the bottom of the pot. Physical abuse, including rape, is common, the report said.
Although the report was based on field work in Guinea, it provides a snapshot of a problem widespread in Africa.
Domestic work is the largest employment category for children worldwide, says Juliane Kippenberg, the report's author and a researcher in the children's rights division of Human Rights Watch.
Children from poor, rural families in West Africa are often sent to live with wealthier, urban relatives as part of a custom of "confiage," or child fostering.
Parents see it as a way of making sure their daughters are at least fed. Others hope that by giving their girls up they will receive an education, said Kippenberg. There are examples of children that had a positive experience and received an education but the system is largely one of exploitation, riddled with abuse.
"A woman came looking for me. She wanted me to take care of her child," begins the testimony of one 14-year-old girl, who was sent to live with an aunt when she was around 6.
"She promised that afterwards I would go to school or do an apprenticeship," the girl said. "But since I am there, the child has grown up, goes to school now, but not me. Up to now, it is me who does everything in the house."
While a large portion of the children are sent to live with aunts, cousins and distant relatives, many are also sent to live with strangers. That is typically the case for girls trafficked to Guinea from other African countries, the report says.
West Africa, the report explains, is one of the world's poorest regions and includes its five poorest countries, as ranked by the United Nations Human Development Index.
Even though Guinea is the world's largest producer of bauxite, the raw material used to make aluminum, it is ranked 160th out of the 177 countries on the index and the majority of its 10 million people live in crippling poverty. It is a milieu that makes an offer of employment for a child a tempting offer.
